With the proliferation of the Internet and World Wide Web, virtual communities have increased and become popular. Virtual communities allow a social network of individuals to interact through specific media, such as web-based message boards and email. Some virtual communities have also connected individuals through videoconferencing.
Videoconferencing allows two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions. Videoconferencing uses audio and video telecommunications to bring people at different sites together. For example, videoconferencing can be utilized for a conversation between people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several (multipoint) sites in large rooms at multiple locations. Besides the audio and visual transmission of meeting activities, some videoconferencing technologies allow participants to share documents and display information on shared screens.
Some videoconference systems have been utilized to conduct virtual meetings between doctors and their patients. However, such systems have been utilized with established doctor-patient relationships. In other words, such systems have been implemented in where a doctor and a patient have already established a doctor-patient relationship or already have a relationship through a health insurance network.